A-b-e Airport Seeks Increase In User Fees

To raise more revenue, officials at Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton Airport are proposing an increase in the fees airlines and other users of the airport are charged.

Executive Director George Doughty yesterday admitted the proposed increases will probably be unpopular, but said the additional $1.5 million in gross revenue would strengthen the airport's financial position before it borrows money to expand.

The proposal calls for increasing airline landing and terminal fees, parking and concession rates, and the rent on T-hangars housing small planes. And the staff is considering a new charge on taxis and limousines serving the airport.

"The airlines have been getting a great deal at A-B-E; the cost per passenger is currently very low," Doughty wrote in a memo distributed yesterday to the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority's finance committee. But the low rates mean less money to the bottom line and more money the airport must borrow to finance projects, Doughty said.

"I don't think we can keep rates where they are," Doughty said. "We don't want to be in a deficit situation or have a facility that's not maintained well. This gives us a positive cash flow."

The proposed increases could make negotiations with the airlines over the airport expansion a bit stickier. But Doughty said he doesn't expect the airlines to make a financial commitment to the expansion before the airport is ready to borrow money for the project.

And the airport needs to strengthen its financial position now before it borrows, he said.

Expansion plans include lengthening the main runway, building a smaller runway adjacent to it and expanding the passenger terminal. Improvements to the baggage claim and parking lot are under way.

The proposed new rates are comparable to competing airports in Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York, Doughty said, and he doesn't expect the increases will change airline service at A-B-E.

Doughty said the fees airlines now pay at A-B-E are 1 percent to 2 percent of their total operating budgets. The increases would add 1 percent or less, he said.

Parking rates would also be increased under the proposal. The $5 per day rate would increase to $6 per day, generating $474,587 in revenue to help pay for repaving and restriping the parking lot to handle more cars, Doughty said.

The current parking rate is 50 cents per half hour to a maximum of $5 per day.

Doughty's staff recommended setting up a cheaper, long-term parking lot near the government building to the east of the passenger terminal. The rate would be $1 per hour to a maximum of $4 per day.

The main parking lot next to the terminal would be divided into short- and long-term parking.

T-hangar rents haven't been raised since 1990, Doughty said. The rents on some of the airport's facilities are controlled by leases, but the majority of the hangars are rented on a month-to-month basis that allows for rate adjustments.

The proposed increases were presented to the finance committee along with a proposed 1993 operating budget of $6.9 million, a 19 percent increase over the 1992 budget.

The finance committee asked Doughty and his staff to trim expenditures and resubmit the budget.

The budget included increases for advertising, legal services, public relations, environmental services and salaries.

An extra $320,000 was set aside to pay attorneys defending the airport authority against a lawsuit filed two years ago by Northeast Jet Co. Inc.